Attendance Management Programs in Canadian Municipalities (Belleville, Peterborough and Townsville)

Attendance management programs are a new phenomenon among Canadian municipalities. As a result, much of what is known about creating an effective attendance management program at the municipal level comes from arbitral jurisprudence. Arbitral jurisprudence provides human resources practitioners with an excellent skeletal framework for creating an enforceable attendance management program; however, few operational details related to creating an effective one. These case studies utilize research interviews conducted with the senior administrators responsible for attendance management in several municipalities. The results of this study indicate that a core set of best practices for attendance management are emerging in municipalities, and that attendance management may not be the black hole it once was.